D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[zarionofarabel]

You asked, I answered. But we both knew you'd never compromise.

Because, since the beginning of the thread, there has been the obvious acknowledgement that allowing characters who are too powerful causes issues. The player in question wanted to be an undying Paladin who devoured the souls of the unholy to fuel his powers. Allowing him to regenerate and continue using his spells after he ran out of slots as long as he had enough souls.

I don't think I need to explain why that would have been too powerful for a level 1 game. When I re-explained to him that that concept was too much, he went to a Dwarf Fighter.

What would have happened, pray tell, if the player would have refused to change their concept? What would have happened if they insisted that they get to play their Undying Paladin?

Have you not been following the conversation? Plenty of people like Maxperson, Oofta, and Jack Daniel have been heaping praise on DMs who "hold the line" against players, and develop "far superior" worlds with deeply crafted history and cultures, by denying those players who want a kitchen sink of more than four options.

I mean, you had to have seen the parts of the conversation about how DMs shouldn't cave to player pressure, they should be free to express their artistic vision of their world, how players who are looking to do something outside of that vision are just seeking shallow stereotypes.

You've made a few claims like that yourself, now that I think about it, wonder why you don't know what I'm talking about.

If by people agreeing with your position, then you get much praise as well!

 

[zarionofarabel]

But you only run human-only campaigns. 100% of your fun is destroyed if any player in any campaign you are involved with plays anything other than a human, or if anything other than humans exists in the setting as anything other than a monster that need to be killed forthwith. I don't think your opinion of Kender is worth considering, here.

Run human only games. Run them! I play whatever the DM wants to run. If a DM wanted to run an all Dragon People game I would play a Dragon People!

 

[zarionofarabel]

Literally no fun? Like, does this actively take away from your story, social, RP or combat experiences?

Yes on all counts!

 

[prabe]

So how can people who must to play some specific race handle official setting that do not have all races or whose take on them is very different? For example IIRC Dark Sun has no gnomes or warforged and its take on may of the other races is rather divergent too. If one wants to play an elf but their idea is some sort of a Tolkienish high and mighty refined magical super being, would they really be satisfied with Dark Sun's ragged desert elves who have practically nothing in common with that? What about settings that are not even originally D&D settings? If I want to run a game in the world of Dark Crystal, do I need to port all the standard D&D races into it if I decide to use D&D as a system for it?

If the table decides on something like Dark Sun or Dark Crystal, then it seems reasonable to me to stick to the options the setting presents. It would seem to me that the "I gotta play my elf" guy would have to play something else or play at a different table.

And while I think it might be easier to re-skin the races in the books for something like Dark Crystal, I'm willing to be wrong about that, and it's not necessary to use book races for something like that.

 

[Jack Daniel]

So how can people who must to play some specific race handle official setting that do not have all races or whose take on them is very different? For example IIRC Dark Sun has no gnomes or warforged and its take on may of the other races is rather divergent too. If one wants to play an elf but their idea is some sort of a Tolkienish high and mighty refined magical super being, would they really be satisfied with Dark Sun's ragged desert elves who have practically nothing in common with that? What about settings that are not even originally D&D settings? If I want to run a game in the world of Dark Crystal, do I need to port all the standard D&D races into it if I decide to use D&D as a system for it?

Really quite a good question. And applicable to my situation. As someone who rather despises both the stereotypical D&D elf and the stereotypical D&D dwarf, what would a "player's choice absolutist" say about one of my campaigns, where one of the first things I say when a new player sits down at my table is: "Elves in my game settings don't hug trees or look down on other races, and dwarves aren't violent drunkards who talk in an exaggerated brogue. If you play to one of those stereotypes (which you're of course still free to do), NPCs won't see you as just acting like an elf or a dwarf, they'll see you as being a weirdo or a jerk, and they'll react accordingly."

 

[zarionofarabel]

The fluff is important to those who are interested in it, and it can be changed to have a different meaning. Also, nothing inherently leads to "appearance discrimination there." You also discounted the idea of just changing the culture, and the physical characteristics.

If the fluff can be changed and the culture can be changed and the physical appearance can be changed, why not just change it all to human and be done with it?

Well, you don't free them of playing stereotypes in general. Anything fictional is informed by preexisting material, or "derivative." If a player relies on stereotypes, that's their problem. Nothing here says that good RP can't be done with the other races, which properly uses whatever fluff and features in a meaningful way.

Never said free them from any and all stereotypes, just the ones that restrict then to stick with the fluff associated with a non-human race.

The fluff of human characters can be changed at will too. Any part of the story can, that's how DnD works, there is no exclusive problem here. With that said, there's more to a race than their exact fluff, which means there can be flexibility in regards to including the races in other ways under new context. I'll ignore the "unimaginative" comment. I'm not dragging you anywhere, you're just refusing to look at something you really ought to. When talking about writing/RP/acting, how can you not talk about storytelling in general? I believe that looking at the situation from that lease proves my point- convenient you get to avoid it.

I don't see a direct correlation between writing/acting, and RP. In writing and acting there is the content creator and the audience. No such divide exists in RP the content creators are also the audience. Also, again, if all the fluff can just be changed, what's the big deal? Just make all the humanoids actual humans!

Yeah, yeah, your game is your game and I never challenged that, anyway. More casual superiority, mischaracterization and strawmanning. I won't dignify this paragraph with anything more than this as a response.

I disagree about the classes comment. I want a better tool kit too, but we just seem to have different ideas of what that means. More flexibility to execute whatever concepts the party has? That's my stance. Yours...?

Get rid of classes and create a system that allows players to create whatever kind of character they want. My personal favorite fantasy RPG is Mythras, humans only, no classes, divine magic, wizard magic, monk mysticism, basic hedge-witch magic...best fantasy RPG out there IMHO! A true "toolkit" to make my feverish nightmares come true!

Misrepresentation. This time, severely. I explicitly said play the game how you want, but don't force the community or players to change. Let the choices exist for everyone who uses them, if you're as tolerant as you say you are.

This is the eye rolling emoji, right? If not, pretend it is!

Good! It's good that you introduce things to people that they like. You're still wrong for generalizing the differences between playing human and not. Character depth depends on the player's skill, not the race of what they play.

What is the measure of player skill I wonder? Is it good RP? Then that would lead to circular reasoning, immediately! Character depth come through action in the narrative. Some of the best roleplayers and deepest characters I have ever encountered were from people who were brand new to the hobby and not weighed down by years of stuffing themselves into "Elf" or "Dwarf" boxes.

Oh, I think it matters. I think fluff matters, as well as the way people read it. And now you do, too! Jk. I still think you dance on a weird line of things only mattering if they're negative, whereas I think it matters in all directions, depending on the player DM you ask.

Indeed it does. I worry about the negative far more than the positive because in order to make the world a better place we need to focus on fixing the negative parts, once that's out of the way we can dance and celebrate and raise our glasses high celebrating the positive. Our species may be on the brink, and mostly what people want is to watch more reality TV and not care. It's absolutely TRAGIC!!! Sorry if it bleeds into my discussions of RP. What can I say, I'm a passionate heterosexual white (Metis actually but I identify as white) male human.

What? I'm saying that the obscure races are BAD for power gaming because they're not mechanically good. The only reason you'd sanely play a Dragonborn is for RP fun! And your stance against power gaming is once again disagreeable. It hasn't hurt DnD because you can still play the game however you want. If people want to play it differently, the game has them covered too. Also, there's more to fundamentally talk about with the community in regards to mechanics compared to RP. Why? Because settings and stories vary wildly, but the rules are standardized across players. It's easier to talk about my new Greatsword because it requires less context and can get direct answers compared to my PC's 40 session history. I also don't take your anecdote as proof of your position, because you can't use that as an excuse to call other players harmful or generalize or hate on their place in the community. When you call gameplay focused players harmful and demean other PC races, that's why you're a One True Way-er. You don't mean it when you say "play how you want"- the rest of what you say completely contradicts it. I mean it when I say it. I don't want the game to be different than it is in a way that stops you from being in it. I overall don't want it to change to exclude people, or to consider other tables more valid than others, which is such a neutral position that I'm surprised you struggle so much to accept it.

I've seen the game change first hand. Back in the day when I ran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition all the people at the game shop told stories about what was happening in the narrative of the game they were participating in. Now all the people at the game shop talk about is mechanics. I used to watch people describe how their character was shopping for new clothes or dancing at the King's Grand Ball. Now I watch them push minis around a battlemat and skip over the "boring" shopping trip. 5e was supposed to be a return to the days of old when RP mattered, except that doesn't sell minis or books full of even more mechanics. The saving grace is that I do get to watch and discuss RP as long as the players have "moved on" from D&D to systems that are less mechanics focused. D&D is the "800 pound Gorilla" as others have said. I wish it was used to increase the RP part of the hobby. The minis fights can be left to the minis combat games. I am very afraid, and not at all surprised, if 5e is the death of RP as RP and just becomes another minis combat game in the future. I don't want this hobby to die, but with D&D being always more focused on the "gameplay" crowd over the "roleplaying" crowd means it is leading the entire hobby in that direction. That makes me SAD!

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've seen the game change first hand. Back in the day when I ran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition all the people at the game shop told stories about what was happening in the narrative of the game they were participating in. Now all the people at the game shop talk about is mechanics. I used to watch people describe how their character was shopping for new clothes or dancing at the King's Grand Ball. Now I watch them push minis around a battlemat and skip over the "boring" shopping trip. 5e was supposed to be a return to the days of old when RP mattered, except that doesn't sell minis or books full of even more mechanics. The saving grace is that I do get to watch and discuss RP as long as the players have "moved on" from D&D to systems that are less mechanics focused. D&D is the "800 pound Gorilla" as others have said. I wish it was used to increase the RP part of the hobby. The minis fights can be left to the minis combat games. I am very afraid, and not at all surprised, if 5e is the death of RP as RP and just becomes another minis combat game in the future. I don't want this hobby to die, but with D&D being always more focused on the "gameplay" crowd over the "roleplaying" crowd means it is leading the entire hobby in that direction. That makes me SAD!

I see the opposite. I see nothing but contempt in the broader community for those of us who like our RPGs minis-focused and wargame-like. I've been told on more than one occasion that not focusing on the improvisational playacting means that I'm "doing D&D wrong."

Never mind that half the rulebooks sitting on my game-table when I play are subtitled "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures."

 

[Dire Bare]

If the table decides on something like Dark Sun or Dark Crystal, then it seems reasonable to me to stick to the options the setting presents. It would seem to me that the "I gotta play my elf" guy would have to play something else or play at a different table.

And while I think it might be easier to re-skin the races in the books for something like Dark Crystal, I'm willing to be wrong about that, and it's not necessary to use book races for something like that.

I don't know.

If I was running a Dragonlance campaign, which doesn't have orcs or drow, and a player wanted to play one of those races. I'd consider it. I'd ask myself, WHY are those races not a part of the setting and does it make sense. Would I "break" the setting by adding them in? The answer would vary by setting.

In Dragonlance, orcs don't exist . . . but their thematic space is filled by hobgoblins and also draconians. The player might be willing to play one of those races instead, but really, would it "break" Dragonlance by adding in orcs as yet another race enslaved by the evil dragonarmies? Maybe there are drow deep down in the underdark somewhere, just unknown to most on the continent of Krynn. Why not?

In Dark Sun, some of the classic races that are absent from the setting are because they used to exist, but the dragon-kings under Rajaat committed genocide and took them all out in ancient times. I think gnomes fit into this group. It's part of how the setting jars your D&D expectations by taking something familiar and working it into a tragic millenia-old story. But, if a player really wanted to play a gnome . . . I think I could find plenty of ways to do it without "breaking" Dark Sun. Switch out the gnome genocide for another unfortunate race. Or have the character be in some sort of suspended animation . . . time travel . . . traveler from another world . . .

Ultimately, any D&D setting is YOUR setting to modify and play with as you please. And by "you", I mean the entire play group at the table. There is no wrong answer here.

But, if I was joining a group where the DM wanted to run a by-the-books Dragonlance campaign (or any other popular setting), I'd be okay with the settings existing restrictions. But if I did ask to play something "off-the-list" and was given some of the answers in this thread . . . hyuge red flag, I'd probably nope on right out of there!

 

[Crit]

Hoo wee

If the fluff can be changed and the culture can be changed and the physical appearance can be changed, why not just change it all to human and be done with it?

Because it's easier to keep things as they are, rather than do that and force the rest of the community to home-brew things apart again for elements of the game they already enjoy.

Never said free them from any and all stereotypes, just the ones that restrict then to stick with the fluff associated with a non-human race.

Okay. Specific, but okay. There's ways to do that without completely cutting the race.

I don't see a direct correlation between writing/acting, and RP. In writing and acting there is the content creator and the audience. No such divide exists in RP the content creators are also the audience.

RP is literally role-playing, which is acting out the role you wrote mixed with improv. It doesn't matter who the audience is, if the same skills are needed. If I write a book, I'm writing a book regardless of whether it's red by me, my friends or perfect strangers.

Also, again, if all the fluff can just be changed, what's the big deal? Just make all the humanoids actual humans!

Why? People want the fluff they want. If they don't want omni-humans, then doing that is useless. There's no reason to do it unless you explicitly want to play the game that way, and if they wanted to, they already would! The only thing gained by a third party experiencing this change is appeasing you. If the fluff is loose enough to change, then the change to all-Human can't matter either. If these things are soo human to you that they might as well be Human, then what problem exists with their current state of being? There's no reason to take the step you're proposing.

Get rid of classes and create a system that allows players to create whatever kind of character they want. My personal favorite fantasy RPG is Mythras, humans only, no classes, divine magic, wizard magic, monk mysticism, basic hedge-witch magic...best fantasy RPG out there IMHO! A true "toolkit" to make my feverish nightmares come true!

Okay, great! D&D doesn't have to change to be more like that, especially if something exactly like what you're looking for already exists.

This is the eye rolling emoji, right? If not, pretend it is!

Way to snub something that you should agree too. I wish I could be so evasive with such confidence.

What is the measure of player skill I wonder? Is it good RP? Then that would lead to circular reasoning, immediately! Character depth come through action in the narrative.

Why would it be "good RP"? That's an umbrella term. It'd be their imagination/writing/acting. Character depth comes from the consideration brought in by the player to the character's personality and mentality.

Some of the best roleplayers and deepest characters I have ever encountered were from people who were brand new to the hobby and not weighed down by years of stuffing themselves into "Elf" or "Dwarf" boxes.

That's nice, but adds nothing. Maybe players just need to learn how to step out of boxes, rather than avoid ever confronting them. Even then, it's not like this means that the option shouldn't exist.

Indeed it does. I worry about the negative far more than the positive because in order to make the world a better place we need to focus on fixing the negative parts, once that's out of the way we can dance and celebrate and raise our glasses high celebrating the positive.

My way of looking at it is this: If I took Orcs as is, and then made them look human and said they were human, would they all of the sudden not be offensive? No. The offensive part is what the context and characterization is doing, not the idea of an orc race, something whose meaning can change into something else. Also, why does something having more than one possible meaning make it meaningless? That's just arbitrary reasoning.

You don't just "not worry" about the positive of this topic, you completely deny that it does or could exist! I want the offensive things to be fixed, but you're basically using this as a vehicle to cut out a part of a game that is not the problem. There would never be a point to celebrate the fun of non-human storytelling of you took that same feature out to the back and put it down with a shotgun. This message of yours is agreeable and nice on the surface, but behind its face is something far less appealing.

Aside from that, you can't make the case for elimination of a feature if you keep explicitly refusing to see the value people are putting into it. Anything looks bad if you try to make it look bad.

I've seen the game change first hand.

Zarion. I know our personal experiences inform our worldview, but these things are not effective sample sizes for the community's practices, and even then, all it can do is inform whether or not you like things, not if it's "good". I don't care if the other races make for bad RP (which they don't), so long as people have fun. DnD doesn't have some obligation to facilitate the highest quality RP skills, it's for people to take that toolbox and use it. People are using it. Stop attacking the toolbox. Do I need to get the Cello metaphor back?

Back in the day when I ran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition all the people at the game shop told stories about what was happening in the narrative of the game they were participating in. Now all the people at the game shop talk about is mechanics. I used to watch people describe how their character was shopping for new clothes or dancing at the King's Grand Ball. Now I watch them push minis around a battlemat and skip over the "boring" shopping trip. 5e was supposed to be a return to the days of old when RP mattered, except that doesn't sell minis or books full of even more mechanics. The saving grace is that I do get to watch and discuss RP as long as the players have "moved on" from D&D to systems that are less mechanics focused. D&D is the "800 pound Gorilla" as others have said. I wish it was used to increase the RP part of the hobby. The minis fights can be left to the minis combat games. I am very afraid, and not at all surprised, if 5e is the death of RP as RP and just becomes another minis combat game in the future. I don't want this hobby to die, but with D&D being always more focused on the "gameplay" crowd over the "roleplaying" crowd means it is leading the entire hobby in that direction. That makes me SAD!

Your problem is that the community has changed, as if it needs to return to the old. Maybe DnD just has more casual fans. I think RP is a good thing, but if people aren't doing that, then that's their prerogative. I'm sorry this isn't what you want, but you can play how you want still. It may not feel like it, but things are okay in this situation. People may not enjoy things the same way, but isn't it important for them to be happy at all? I know you care about people having good experiences and developing, but you have to see that what you're working for isn't even in your own interest. You want them to advance? They already are. Be happy? They are. RP-ing? In their own way, they are. What's it matter how they play the game? DnD/WotC have problems, but this isn't something that needs fixing.

 

[Gammadoodler]

So how can people who must to play some specific race handle official setting that do not have all races or whose take on them is very different? For example IIRC Dark Sun has no gnomes or warforged and its take on may of the other races is rather divergent too. If one wants to play an elf but their idea is some sort of a Tolkienish high and mighty refined magical super being, would they really be satisfied with Dark Sun's ragged desert elves who have practically nothing in common with that? What about settings that are not even originally D&D settings? If I want to run a game in the world of Dark Crystal, do I need to port all the standard D&D races into it if I decide to use D&D as a system for it?

I can't say for sure, race is something I enjoy but don't particularly obsess over when I play. That said, I'd expect that a lot of it would come down to what the alternative game options are, how much the player enjoys the other people who are going to be in the game with them, and how much they put into that preferred race. And these variables are likely interrelated.

I've watched movies I knew I was going to hate because I was going to be with people I loved being around, and I've skipped activities I knew I would enjoy because I disliked who I'd be doing them with. I've also participated in events that were less than ideal because they were still the best version of a thing I wanted do. I doubt that I'm uncommon in any of these respects.

So really, it could go any different way really, unless they put 100% of themselves into just what mechanical options are allowed at the table. But really, doing that is kinda nonsense.